Honestly there’s a number of posters on the lists for the 00s I don’t recognize either, if you’re willing to give a rundown for the other cohorts I’d appreciate it greatly
Just doing people who I know well, because the early days of Atlas are as far away from when I registered as when I registered is from now. Also ignoring who are still active on here, unless they post way less frequently.
Interesting the 2003 people are mostly still highly active here. Kind of striking!
In 2004, I didn't mention Gabu, who was 11th. Gabu was also before my time, but he had a reputation as a quick wit who got a lot of burns in on BRTD.
In 2005, we have "Joe Biden 2020" aka Bushie (D-OK), who is one of the forum's more infamous characters. He was an bumbling evangelical Christian from Oklahoma who for peculiar reasons treated the forum like his personal diary, oversharing far too much about his genuinely foolish and disgusting behavior and attracting a devoting following of critics who badgered him to improve his life. These "Update" threads were definitely unethical but had a certain literary quality; his life kind of resembled a picaresque novel, with him falling for scam after scam and flunking out of job after job. He also had a weird writing style which was folksy and kind of compelling. Moderators eventually (rightly) banned Update; if I remember right this was the precipitating event that lead to the creation of AAD. The most memorable moment of Update was on AAD shortly after the shift over; Bushie fell for an amateurish craigslist scam (which likely lured him in via the promise of a $50 daily "meal subsidy") where he'd be working at a bridal store called "Ashfat Bridal" for a man named either Pedro Torres or Tevez. It turned out to be a straightforward check scam which Bushie fell for, despite almost everyone on the forum figuring out the con and telling him not do it.
It may be in the format of a scam, but his close communication is what is keeping me around.
There's a lot more to say about Bushie, but that would kind of derail this thread. Update is basically done now with AAD dying, and since Update is banned here Bushie seems to no longer affiliate with the community (since he has no interest in politics). Per the last few Update posts on AAD from last year, Bushie seems to finally be doing well.
Memphis was one of the most devoted Update readers. D-TN avatar, and very much part of the crew of posters who rebelled against the mods and went over to AAD. A particularly unpleasant guy IMO; kind of racist and classist, and an extreme transphobe. Eraserhead was of a similar group of rebel posters, though much nicer and with better opinions, and was also deeply involved with Update.
Inks (R-MI) was a mod during the Obama years and was infamous for his draconian enforcement of moderating rules. I'm not sure if this is how moderation works now, but back then a violation of forum rules was punished by giving the poster "infraction points" (commonly called death points by critics), a certain number of which would trigger mod review, and then a tempban. The number of infraction points assigned was up to the discretion of the mods, and Inks was infamous for piling them on, especially to posters he didn't like. (Hilariously the death points system was invented by Bushie when he was briefly a mod).
Eventually he was brought down by attempting to blackmail former poster Simfan in an IRC chatroom in exchange for information on socks, a scandal which lead to his unmodding and nearly his banning (I don't remember the details, but the relevant thread is
here. A bit of a Nixonian or J. Edgar Hoover-esque story. I believe he occasionally still posts, amazingly.
Tetro Kornbluth is Gully Foyle, BRTD's ancient enemy from Ireland. A pretty high quality poster. He actually had a pretty prominent role in the 2012-2015 era of the forum which brought Inks and the zenith of Update's popularity; his advocacy and research exposed Opebo's misconduct and finally lead to his banning.
